1. Field of the Invention
This disclosure relates to the field of weight determining mechanisms for use with luggage; in particular to weight determining mechanisms carried on-board a piece of luggage to determine the loaded weight of the piece of luggage.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the study of injury done to the human body through everyday activities has become a field of increasing importance. The sudden rise of repetitive stress injuries in the last few years and a greater understanding of the damage that can be done to the human body by common tasks has led many people to try to determine safer ways to carry out their everyday lives. Potential dangers from everyday activities are particularly troubling when they occur during childhood, where a growing body may be less likely to recover from an injury and where an injury can potentially alter a person's whole life.
One area of everyday injury that has recently caught attention is back injury from carrying or lifting overly heavy loads. This is particularly a problem for school children where scientists have determined that many kids carry far too much weight in their backpacks to and from classes in order to transport school books and school supplies. Many experts recommend that a child carry no more than 15% of their body weight in a backpack to avoid an increased risk of musculoskeletal injury and particularly damage to the spine.
The above concerns are proving disturbing to many parents and school officials. In some areas, the concern has reached such a fevered pitch that school districts are being asked to find cost effective means for reducing the load of school children's backpacks. While such procedures may be necessary for preventing school children from taking home more weight than they should be carrying in order to complete assignments, the best way to prevent danger from overloaded backpacks is to directly determine if a particular load, in a particular pack, is too heavy for a particular child to be carrying. The load can then be adjusted or carried in multiple different bags or the child can be helped by an adult to carry the supplies needed.
While placing the backpack on a traditional scale, or similar weight determining device, would be suitable for determining the weight of a backpack, these systems are generally clunky and it can be difficult to have a scale available to weigh the backpack for every child every day as would generally be required to insure that the backpack is not overloaded.
Weight in backpacks is not the only place where knowledge of the weight of luggage is valuable. When traveling, particularly via aircraft to international destinations, many airlines impose weight restrictions on luggage in order to protect their workers from injury and to insure that the aircraft is not overloaded. While the airlines can efficiently weigh the bags upon check-in, the traveler often does not have any idea if their bag will be too heavy before it is too late. By the time the airline weighs the bag and determines it is overly heavy, the traveler is often not able to transfer the contents to another piece of luggage to decrease the weight, or to leave various items at home because they are already at the airport and may not have any other luggage with them into which to transfer the overweight luggage contents. Therefore, the traveler is forced to pay overweight baggage fines and baggage handlers are required to lift the heavy bags. Even if they are able to repack, the traveler must go through the inconvenience of trying to repack at the airport where they are under time constraints, their luggage is not as easily accessible as it is at home, and they risk theft of luggage contents.